But once in awhile God speaks, actually speaks to just me. He says something that isn’t for everyone, it is for me alone. These times are few and far between. But last weekend I heard Him and it was so sweet and so terrifying. I was actually nauseated for several hours…but in a good way…I think.

I went on a walk while The Hunky Hubby was shopping for camp and picking up the boys from school. So I was by myself, slogging along down the road through slush and ice several inches thick. It was very cold and wet and not really the ideal day for a walk. On the way I kept having ideas for a camp chapel session. Weird, I thought. I usually do not have chapel ideas. Besides giving my testimony, I have never been a speaker at camp. A strange anomaly…but just in case I shot up a quick prayer.

“Lord, if you actually want me to say these things to actual real live people then I will have to know it is for sure you. Make The Hunky Hubby ask me to speak at chapel.”

And then I slogged on home, safe in the knowledge that The Hunky Hubby might have asked me to speak in chapel once before in our 13 years of marriage…and he was joking. Not that he is against a lady speaking at camp or anything, he just knows me and realizes that it isn’t my thing.

So…Saturday evening The Hunky Hubby was staring at his computer screen trying to come up with his session for Sunday morning. He turned to me, looked me in the eye, and said: “I know, you should speak.”

Normally I would have laughed. “Ha ha ha ha! You are hilarious oh husband of mine.”

Instead I was overcome with nausea. Because I suddenly remembered my hastily sent prayer of the day before and had forgotten everything I’d been mulling over during that walk. But three seconds later it all came back, although the nausea remained. And so I stayed up way to late that night looking up Bible verses and despite my terror managed to make it through a chapel session on Sunday morning.

The lesson went fine, for which I am grateful. But what thrills me most of all was the chance to hear from my Lord. For one brief instant I felt like Elijah hidden in the cave craning my ear for that still small voice on the wind. It is not every day that we get to hear something just for us. There is so much to learn from His word. But when He does speak right to me without the barrier of paper and page, His glory astounds me and overwhelms me and I am always changed for having heard His beautiful and mighty voice.

I Kings 19:11b-13–“Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?'”